February 10, 1998-- At a hearing today the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee considered Sen. John McCain's new bill to require schools and libraries with federally-subsidized Internet access to use software filters, and Sen. Dan Coats' bill to criminalize the publication of material "harmful to minors" on the Internet. "Both these bills go down the same mistaken path that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) did," said Daniel J. Weitzner, Deputy Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Both bills attempt to impose a single national standard controlling what everyone online can see, think and say. This approach is inconsistent with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, in overturning the CDA last year, that the Internet deserves the highest degree of First Amendment protections."

The First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to free expression. More than two decades ago the Supreme Court made "contemporary community standards" the law of the land on the regulation of obscenity and material that is harmful to minors. But the McCain bill, known as the "Internet School Filtering Act," and the Coats bill ignore, as the CDA ignored, the diversity of moral principles that hold sway in communities across the nation--and among the thousands of communities that exist on the Internet, Weitzner said. Both bills also ignore the right of parents to teach their children responsibility and judgment as they see fit, he added. For more information, see http://www.cdt.org/speech/980210_mccain.html .

It is possible to find ways to protect children online without sacrificing the free speech values of the First Amendment, Weitzner said. "Nonprofit organizations and Internet industry members have been working for many months on solutions that will help keep children safe on the Internet," he added. "Congress shouldn't make a rush to legislative judgment until it has heard from all of these people."